Numerous food products are packaged in squeezable pouches, such as for example, fruit drinks, yogurt, pudding and baby foods. These are essentially convenience packages for directly delivering squeezable food and drinks to the consumer without requiring knives, spoons or other eating utensils.
These squeezable pouches typically have a plastic tube at the end of the pouch so that a consumer can squeeze the pouch and force out to expel or extrude the food product from the pouch. Also, less viscous food products can typically also be sucked out of the pouch by a consumer without squeezing the pouch.
Squeezable pouches come in a variety of widths and even greater variety of lengths to accommodate different volumes of food or drink content. One common consistency is the use of flanges on the plastic tube used for the purpose of pouch filling operations. While the present invention does not require a flange on the plastic tube, such a flange helps to prevent sliding of the plastic tube in the container and holds the food pouch in a consistent position for feeding regardless of the dimensions of any particular manufacturer's food pouch.